Google announced that they were removing the “View Image” button from their image search starting February 15th, 2018. The announcement went out recently via a tweet from the Google Search Liaison from Danny Sullivan, who made it known that you won’t be able to click “View Image” anymore when you search up images on Google.
Today we’re launching some changes on Google Images to help connect users and useful websites. This will include removing the View Image button. The Visit button remains, so users can see images in the context of the webpages they’re on. pic.twitter.com/n76KUj4ioD
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) February 15, 2018
It’s true, if you attempt to click on an image and click “View Image” you won’t be able to. They also removed the “View Visually Similar Images” from the Google Image search results, so you can no longer view similar images of the same size. As you can see in the image below, those options are completely gone now.
Some users have stated that this is actually a good thing because Bing has a really good image and video search that isn’t basked in censorship or politically motivated means to feed you certain kinds of topics or imagery. Essentially people are saying that if you don’t like this change by Google, it might be time to start using Bing.
According to The Verge, they surmise that this is done to protect copyrighted material from being stolen or used without the permission of rights holders. Thus, the only way most normies would be able to view the full image is by doing what Google suggested and visiting the website to see the full-sized image.
The Verge also argues that this could drive more traffic to the website sources of the images, considering that some people will attempt to actually visit the website in order to view the content in its full size.
Google has been making a lot of changes lately that not only changes what kind of content you’re allowed to see on the news feeds and search engines, but it appears that the company is also changing the way you’re allowed to access images via Google Images.
(Thanks for the news tip Quantum Suicider)
